By my grandfather Yevhen Nakonechnyy, head of
Ukrainian Studies Department at the Lviv Vasyl Stefanyk Library
of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Published in Ukrainian newspaper
"Postup" in Lviv, Ukraine on 3 rd of August, 1999

(my rough translation from Ukrainian)

When the main rabbi of Lviv Dr Dawid Kahane was to the
Monastery of fathers Studyts, who risqued their lives in order to
hide him from Germans, the monk father Theodiziy said:
"Current times are times of fear and sorrow".

About the current of events of catastrophe of Galician Jewry
during the Second World War, our society knows not very much.
From the first look, surprisingly but not in Lviv or Kyiv, but in
Warsaw appeared numerous publications on this topic in magazines
of Central Jewish Historical Committee and Jewish Historical
Institute in Poland as well as in a number of publications in
Israel, Great Britain, Germany, US. To research history of
elimination of Jews because of ethnicity was forbidden in the
USSR, before Ukraine became independent. Catastrophe of Jewry
party ideologists substituted with elimination of so called
"Soviet people". As a matter of fact, for Moscow, which
frequently did ethnical cleansing, not wished analogy was
appearing here. Since nor because of class or social strata
definitions, Kreml "internationalists" deported whole
ethnic groups to little populated Siberias. Many peoples
undergone ethnic cleansing in different times: ingermanlandians,
Greeks, Bulgarians, Germans, Turks, Finns, Kalmucks, Chechens,
Ingushes, Karachaevans, Kurds, Balkars, Meschetians, Crimean
Tatars and others.

Thus, only to post - Halanists (from Ukrainian Communist
writer Yaroslav Halan), who were professionally engaged in making
dirty the Greek Catholic Church and Ukrainian national liberty
movement, it was rarely allowed by Communist censorship to
publish something about Jewish Holocaust but always with
Ukrainophobian context. The typical terms used for this were such
as "members of bourgeois nationalistic organizations,
clericals, criminal elements formed the staff for Gestapo,
"Ukrainian" police, terrorized the population, arranged
bloody actions against Soviet activists and their families,
pogroms of Jewish and Polish population". Thus, instead of
of the picture of real events, even today in private
conversations hover around Galicia different sayings on Holocaust
at the level of domestic folklore. Aphorism of Ceslav Milos fits
here the best: "Those who know keep silent, those who speak
do not know".

However today, we see certain positive tendencies in this
trend. According to the program of recently created Institute of
Judaics with the initiative of its director Leonid Finberg, the
pioneer research was made about Galician Ukrainians, who were
killed by Germans because they hided the Jews. The author of this
research is Zhanna Kovba, who wrote an honest and truthful book
about the dreadful times of Second World War in Galicia.

For Ukrainian reader who gets acquainted with the tragedy of
Jewry, it is difficult not to make a parallel with the genocide
of its won people. English author Robert Conquest of famous book
"Harvest of Sorrow" saw also the historical parallel
between the horrors of famine of 1932 - 1933 in East Ukraine and
Hitler's death concentration camp. He wrote: "Ukraine and
Ukrainian, Cossack and some other lands eastwards from it - the
territory with nearly 40 millions population, reminded one huge
Bergen- Belsen. The quarter of village population - men, women
and children - either died or were dying and the rest were so
much exhausted that did not even have strength to burry their
relatives or neighbours. And good fed workers and officials of
Communist party supervised over their victims." It happened
so that the Ukraine's artificial famine occurred for 1932- 1933
and Jewish Holocaust for 1942 - 1943. By interesting coincidence,
the time difference between these crimes which appeal for revenge
to the heaven is ten years. Ukrainians, as no other people, have
to to feel the most deeply the tragedy and whole pain of Jewish
genocide, since they experienced themselves the similar. And they
have to see it as an example from the Jews how it is needed to
honour the memory of innocent victims of own people.

Surely, that the Jews had liked Ukrainian land from the
earliest times. How otherwise to explain the fact that before the
Second World War, over 3 millions of Jews lived on Ukrainian
lands, what comprises 20 % of world Jewry. And in 1887 it was
that 30 % of world Jewry lived on Ukrainian lands. Odesa (Odessa)
was third city after New York and Warsaw by the concentration of
the Jews in the world (154.000 or 35.5 %) In pre war Kyiv (Kiev)
there were 140.500 Jews living (27,7 %), in pre war Lviv
(Lwow/Lemberg) in 1931 there were 98.000 Jews (31,9 %), in
Ternopil (Tarnopol) there were 13.768 Jews residing (44 % of
population of Ternopil). In Stanislav (present day
Ivano-Frankivsk): 15.860 (52,2%). Today, Jewish diaspora in
Ukraine is fifth largest in the world despite all the past
tragedies. According to Zh. Kovba, the national composition of
Eastern Galicia, on the eve of Second World War was the
following: 4.257.000 (73,2 %) of Ukrainians, 948.000 (16.2 ) of
Poles, 570.000 (9,9 %) of Jews and 49.000 (0,9 %) of Germans and
others. Russians in pre war statistics were not found. Among
Poles, 73.000 were the colonizers of 1920-1930. But all
calculations lead to one that in Galicia, Jews were on the third
place but quantity and comprised not less than 10 % of all
Galicia population. Here the thought of academician Yefremov
finds its confirmation: "Jews as we know, live in closest
ties with Ukrainian people, these are not even neighbours as most
of other peoples, but of composing parts of people on the same
Ukrainian land". Among the Jews, the most were the workers
of small workshops and enterprises and craftsmen: tailors,
carpenters, hat makers, jewellers, optics. Almost 80 % of all
tailors in Galicia were the Jews. The main occupation of Jews in
towns and villages was trade: wholesale, stationary, retail. Most
of Galician Jewry lived poorly. However the Jewish inclination
towards education was overcoming all barriers at those times. The
number of Jewish intellectual workers proportionally was much
higher than of Ukrainian or Polish ones in Galicia.

Out of total number of 1700 of physicians in Galicia, 1150
were the Jews. 41 % of workers of culture, theaters and cinema,
over 65 % of barbers, 43 % of dentists, 45 % of senior nurses in
Galicia were the Jews. 2?200 Jews were the lawyers. For
comparison, there were only 450 Ukrainian lawyers. Galician Jewry
produced four Nobel prize winners: Izek Rabi (physics), Roald
Hoffman (chemistry), Baschewitz - Singer (literature) and Shmuel
Agnon (literature).

Both Ukrainians and Jews were not allowed by Polish government
to work at the state enterprises, institutions, railway, post,
telegraph etc. These measures were applied in theirs strictest
form. Moreover, Ukrainians were experiencing the ethnic
oppression by undergoing a forceful polonization. Just to mention
the eloquent fact that in 1912 in Galicia, there were 2.420
Ukrainian people's school and in 1938 remained only 352. Polish
government conducted the plan of total assimilation of
Ukrainians. Oppressors in chauvinistic blindness seeded the
storm. The harvest did not delay.

Yet since Austrian times Ukrainian political organizations
considered the Jews as potential allies. They tried to involve
them to common fight for democratic rights and national fairness.
In December 1905, the head of Ukrainian parliamentary club in
Austrian parliament Julian Romanczuk came forward with the demand
to reform election system and to create Jewish poll chapter. That
is to make a radical change from recognizing the Jews not as
separate religious community but as a separate national group.
The demand found a great support among Galician Jewry, but it
experienced the fierce denial from Polish side. On the
parliamentary elections of 1907, Jewish candidates were supported
by the votes of Ukrainian peasants. As a result four Zionist
deputies won thanks to Ukrainian votes. They founded a separate
Jewish club in Austrian parliament which was the first Jewish
national political representation in the world.

As Ukrainian historian Lysiak Rudnyckyy noted, the attitude of
Galician Ukrainian political circles towards the Jews was marked
with exceptional understanding. "Not demanding the
assimilation of the Jews, representatives of Ukrainian movement
tried to solve Ukrainian Jewish relations on the basis of
cultural pluralism and recognition of the Jews as separate
national group, mutually expecting that the Jews will not hinder
the Ukrainian people's wish for national and social freedom. Such
a program of Ukrainian political parties was opposite to the
assimilation and antisemitic programs, which were very popular in
eastern Europe in the end of XIX - beginning of XX century".

Understanding that only the Ukrainians could guarantee the
peaceful, honest and worthwhile life to the Galician Jews, Jewish
attitude towards proclamation of West Ukrainian National Republic
in November 1918 (with the collapse of Austrian empire) was
extremely positive all over Galician Jewry. As Ukrainian Jewish
historian Honigsman writes "Jews actively helped to
establish West Ukrainian National Republic and its army. Because
of this the government of ZUNR (West Ukrainian National Republic)
gave broad national cultural autonomy to the Jews and possibility
to defend Jewish interests in all state structures". The
same 1918 year, Ukrainian Central Council (Centralna Rada,
parliament of Ukrainian National Republic or UNR, proclaimed with
the collapse of Russian empire) in Kyiv/Kiev adopted the law
about national person autonomy, which was unique for Jewish
population by its liberalism. Jewish language (Yiddish) was
recognized as official, Jewish schools were founded, the
Department of Jewish history and literature was opened, Jewish
inscriptions appeared on Ukrainian money. In the government of
UNR, special Ministry for Jewish Affairs was created. Going
ahead, it should be mentioned that during the referendum on state
independence of Ukraine in 1991, all Jews unanimously voted for
independence. They did not fear the stereotype of so called
Ukrainian genetic antisemite, popularized by the propaganda. It
comes that Ukrainian historian and publicist Mykola Kostomarov
was right in his work "Two Ruthenian ethnic groups",
when he was writing: "From the earliest times Ukrainians are
used to hear foreign language around themselves and they did not
neglect people with other face and fortune...The spirit of
patience, the lack of national pride still live in people
today". Namely this spirit of patience, absence of
xenophobia influenced the attitude to the Jews, an also Crimean
Tatars, Greeks, Germans and other minorities in a correspondent
moment of history in 1991. The prediction of Jewish foretellers
who claimed that The Jews will get a real equality only then when
Ukraine will become independent, became true. It is certain,
since foreign rulers never tried to make Ukraine a democratic
territory, since it would hinder their rule.

In 1921 Jewish democratic organizations supported Galician
intellectual circles in their demands to establish Ukrainian
university in Lviv. From Ukrainian side, Ukrainian political
parties of Galicia headed by the largest of them UNDO (Ukrainian
National Democratic Alliance) also came forward for the consent
and cooperation with the Jews. It should be underlined that
unlike within Polish society, among Ukrainians there were no
party who would have fight with the Jewry in its program. Leading
classes of Ukrainians never instigated Ukrainian masses against
the Jews. Greek Catholic priest o. Kaczala in his book "What
hinders us and what can help us" (1869) very simply
explained, that alcohol, darkness, inability to organize
ourselves, in order to earn and rightly to spent the money. As a
positive example o. Kaczala put the Jews, who "do not
drink", skillfully trade, teach their children.

This way in pre war Galicia, circumstances were formed for
establishing mutually advantageous cooperation between two
peoples. However, language question became a hinder. Probably,
nothing so much deteriorated the normalization of Ukrainian
Jewish relations, as language problem. According to the census of
1900, Galician Jews recognized as their spoken language: Polish
(76%), German (17%), and Ukrainian (only 5 %). It is known that
Jews communicate in languages of the population, which they live
among. However on Ukrainian lands, Jews used the language of
ruling peoples, who were considered as occupants by the local
population. In East Ukrainian lands it was Russian language, in
Galicia - Polish, in Bukovina - partly German, partly Romanian
and in Transcarpathia - Hungarian.

Among Galician Ukrainians who with all efforts fought against
oppression of their native language, such attitude of the Jews
led to irritation and offense feeling. Thus Jews were frequently
considered as occupants' helpers, though it was naive to demand
from them to stand against the state assimilation policies and to
start orient themselves on rightless language of oppressed
people. The knowledge of Ukrainian language often was limited
only to the necessary market vocabulary. And what you do not
know, that you do not understand, and when you do not understand
it, then you do not honour it, do not love it and fear it.

Friendship relationships between Ukrainian and Jewish
intellectuals in Galicia did not develop namely because of
language nihilism. As famous Ukrainian social activist Milena
Rudnytska (Rudnicka), Jewish by mother, mentions "Two
societies, Jewish and Ukrainian in that inter war Polish period
lived by separate life, being separated with a wall of mutual
non-satisfactions. Surprisingly that even political leaders who
cooperated with each other in Warsaw, did not maintain in Lviv
(Lwow) neither political nor friendship relations. They did not
even try to sit at common table in order to clarify and solve the
mutual non-satisfactions and complaints".

In dramatic time of Catastrophe, when personal mutual
relations were so important Jews were forced to look for help
among friends Poles. They sit together with them at school tables
once, and rejoiced by the gains of Polish culture together once.
In pre war Galicia, a great number of brilliant writers,
journalists, musicians, artists of Jewish origin, were actively
involved in Polish culture, Polish science, Polish social and
society life. In Ukrainian circles, thinkers, writers and
scientists of Jewish origin did not occur. Here is the practical
reason of Ukrainian "apathy" or more precisely
alienation, about which bitterly wrote in their recollections the
Jews who survived the Holocaust.

Roughly translated from Ukrainian on 11.11.00 by Roman
Zakharii

Panorama of Berezhany, my hometown in Eastern Galicia of Western Ukraine